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I have some opened cream cheese (in the foil type) that must be nearly a year old, and it still looks and smells fine! I did a web search and saw that it should be good only for a few weeks in the fridge after opening. I remember eating some a few months ago w/ no problem.
Is this normal? I smelled it, looked at it, tasted a tiny bit of it.....everything checks out OK. Maybe somewhat drier and saltier, but the color looks fine. The box says "Best by March 2024", but surely this means if it's unopened?
No way would I eat any type of dairy product that had been opened a year ago. I'm really surprised the box gives March 2024 as the best by date, even unopened. Not sure it's worth the risk myself.
Whenever I've had opened cream cheese in the 'fridge that I've kept too long. spots of mold appear at the cut end. If it's only at that end I will still cut it off and use the unaffected rest for a few more days.
I can't believe you had some opened, even after a couple of weeks, that hadn't molded!
What do bacteria smell or taste like, that you think you can safely recognize?
For that matter, what do they look like to the naked eye?
My point is that it could be teeming with nasty bacteria but look, smell, and taste perfectly good.
That's the point of recommendations like "discard uneaten portion a week after opening".
Maybe only a tiny percentage of blocks of cream cheese actually become infected with deadly bacteria, but without a microscope, you can't tell if it's contaminated, and you're rolling the dice.
My question is, what are the ingredients of low-fat cream cheese? It obviously has had natural fats removed and replaced with something else. The something else may be acting as a preservative, because standard cream cheese does either dry out or become moldy in a reasonably short length of time.
I am not interested in low-fat dairy to begin with (I don't think it's better for you, and it certainly tastes worse), but if I smelled and tasted the cream cheese and it seemed fine I would personally not worry that it would sicken or kill me. Most highly processed foods last a whole lot longer than the date on the label.
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